Dictionnaire de la langue wendat / Wendat Dictionary

Dictionary Sources

This dictionary is the result of many years of linguistic research with the Wendat archival documentation, consisting of approximately 4,700 pages spread across twelve dictionaries and lexicons, three grammars, and three collections of religious texts. Each entry and example in this dictionary was reconstructed based on the archival documentation and forms found in other Northern Iroquoian languages.

The transcriptions of the Wendat manuscripts, the primary sources used to create this dictionary, are available to consult and search. A list of these manuscripts is below. Please note that the Wendat forms found in these manuscripts are neither reconstructed nor in the standardized orthography, so the sounds in the language might be missing or distorted. These manuscripts also date from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so please keep in mind that the translations are not in modern French.

The project bibliography, found toward the end of this page, contains citations for all the scholarly sources used in the development of this dictionary, including those for Wendat and the other Northern Iroquoian languages.

Wendat Archival Documentation

To search the transcriptions of these manuscripts, please click here.

Project Bibliography

Barbeau, Marius. 1915. Huron and Wyandot mythology. Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau.

Barbeau, Marius. 1960. Huron–Wyandot traditional narratives: In translations and native texts (National Museum of Canada Bulletin 165). Ottawa: The Queen’s Printer and Controller of Stationery.

Barbeau, Marius. 1911–1964. Fonds Marius Barbeau: Huron-Wyandot. Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau, QC.

Barbeau, Marius. n.d. Wyandot dictionary. Manuscript. Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau, QC.

Bruté, S. 1800. Dictionnaire huron portatif. Manuscript. New York Public Library, New York, NY.

Cantiques &tc. en huron. n.d. Manuscript. Bibliothèque de l’Assemblée nationale du Québec, Québec, QC.

Chafe, Wallace. 1967. Seneca morphology and dictionary (Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology 4). Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. 

Chafe, Wallace. n.d. English-Seneca Dictionary. Manuscript. 192 pages.

Connelley, William Elsey. 1899. Notes on the folk-lore of the Wyandots. Journal of American Folklore 12. 116–125.

Connelley, William Elsey. 1900. The Wyandots. Archaeological Report of the Minister of Education Annual Reports. 92–123.

Dictionnaire français–huron. n.d. Manuscript 60. Archives du Séminaire de Québec, Québec, QC. [cited as Ms 60]

Dictionnaire français–huron. n.d. Manuscript. John Carter Brown Library, Brown University, Providence, RI. [cited as Ms JCB]

Dictionnaire huron. n.d. Manuscript 62. Archives du Séminaire de Québec, Québec, QC. [cited as Ms 62]

Dictionnaire huron. n.d. Manuscript 67. Archives du Séminaire de Québec, Québec, QC. [cited as Ms 67]

Dictionnaire huron–iroquois onnontaheron. n.d. Manuscript. Archives de St-Sulpice, Montréal, QC. [cited as Ms FHO]

Froman, Frances; Alfred Keye; Lottie Keye; & Carrie Dyck. 2002. English-Cayuga/Cayuga-English dictionary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Gatschet, Albert Samuel. 1881. Linguistic Notes: Wandót. American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal 3. 249–250.

Gatschet, Albert Samuel. n.d.Manuscript No. 1549. Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives, Washington, DC.

Grammatica huronica. n.d. Manuscript. McGill University Archives, Montréal, Québec.

Hewitt, John Napoleon Brinton. 1894. Wyandot vocabulary. Manuscript No. 2865. Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives, Washington, DC.

Hewitt, John Napoleon Brinton. n.d.-b. Wyandot vocabulary. Manuscript No. 2397. Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives, Washington, DC.

Hewitt, John Napoleon Brinton. n.d.-c. Manuscript No. 3492. Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives, Washington, DC.

Hewitt, John Napoleon Brinton. n.d.-d. Manuscript No. 2865. Smithsonian Institution National Anthropological Archives, Washington, DC.

Michelson, Gunther. 1973. A thousand words of Mohawk (Mercury Series Ethnology Division Papers 5). Ottawa: National Museum of Man.

Michelson, Karin; & Mercy Doxtator. 2002. Oneida–English/English–Oneida dictionary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Mithun, Marianne. 1977. Iontenwennaweienstahkhwa’. Mohawk Spelling Dictionary. New York: The University of the State of New York.

Mithun, Marianne; & Reginald Henry. 1982. A Cayuga grammar. Brantford, Ontario: Woodland Indian Cultural and Educational Centre.

Picard, Paul. [before 1838]. Recueil de chants hurons. Manuscript 66. Archives du Séminaire de Québec, Québec, QC.

Potier, Pierre. n.d. Elementa grammaticæ huronicæ. Manuscript. University of Pennsylvania Archives, Philadelphia, PA.

Potier, Pierre. 1744. Radices linguæ huronicæ. Manuscript. Archives des jésuites au Canada, Montréal, QC.

Potier, Pierre. 1745. Elementa grammaticæ huronicæ. Manuscript. Reproduced in Alexander Fraser (ed.), Huron Manuscripts from Rev. Pierre Potier’s Collection (Fifteenth Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario), 1–157. Toronto: Clarkson W. James.

Potier, Pierre. 1747a. Extraits de l’évangile. Manuscript. Reproduced in Alexander Fraser (ed.), Huron Manuscripts from Rev. Pierre Potier’s Collection (Fifteenth Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario), 457–688. Toronto: Clarkson W. James.

Potier, Pierre. 1747b. Vocabulaire huron-français: Miscellanea. Manuscript. Bibliothèque municipale de Montréal, Montréal, Québec.

Potier, Pierre. 1751. Radices huronicae. Manuscript. Reproduced in Alexander Fraser (ed.), Huron Manuscripts from Rev. Pierre Potier’s Collection (Fifteenth Report of the Bureau of Archives for the Province of Ontario), 159–455. Toronto: Clarkson W. James.

Radices linguae huronicae. n.d. Manuscript 59. Archives du Séminaire de Québec, Québec, QC. [cited as Ms 59]

Radices linguae huronicae. n.d. Manuscript 65. Archives du Séminaire de Québec, Québec, QC. [cited as Ms 65]

Rudes, Blair A. 1999. Tuscarora-English/English-Tuscarora dictionary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Rudes, Blair A.; & Dorothy Crouse (eds.). 1987. The Tuscarora legacy of J.N.B. Hewitt: Materials for the study of the Tuscarora language and culture (Mercury Series Paper No. 108). 2 vols. Gatineau, QC: Canadian Museum of Civilization.

Sagard, Gabriel. 1632. Dictionnaire de la langue huronne nécessaire à ceux n’ont intelligence – d’icelle & ont a traiter avec les sauvages du pays. Paris: Denys Moreau.

Woodbury, Hanni. 2003. Onondaga-English/English-Onondaga dictionary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.